Delfino traded?

I'm not surprised at this move one bit, and frankly agree with it. Delfino had some positive points. Rebounding, ball-handling, defense, particularly the passing lanes, and athleticism. Negative points included B-ball IQ, broke shot, and not a hard worker.

I bet Delfino told Joe he planned to take the summer off again, Joe said "OK;" and pulled the trigger.

Delfino did not show significant improvement in his third year. Given his practice habits, "elsewhere" is a better fit.

Time to go FA shopping. Monte Ellis anyone?

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His "Broke shot" is vastly overstated. Streaky, yes. Broke? Hardly. His FG% on jumpers was a whopping 1% below Sheed, Tay, and Rip this year. Most of his shots are 3's (Flip's wonderful offense), he's not going to have a great FG% by nature. That jumper BTW, 34.5% his rookie year, to 40.8% his 2nd year, to 44.5% this year. So much for that poor work ethic. And what about the defensive jump between his first and 2nd year? He was one of the worst defenders in the league, and he heard all about it. Next year, he came in as a very solid defensive player.

As for the "he wanted to take the summer off again" claim.. He already agreed to play for Argentina (Manu and Nocioni won't be there this year, so he will log major minutes). And which summer was it that he took off before, BTW? Last year he played for Argentina. The year before he played in the Summer League and for Argentina. You're grasping at straws here.

I'm fine with trading him, but for the love of god, get something worthwhile in return. Dangle Delfino, #27, #15, and whatever else to move up into the top 10. But future 2nd rounders? That's pathetic. Now we have yet another gaping hole to fill, and only middle to late draft picks to fill it with. What? You think Bill D is going to dip well into the tax limit to sign a free agent with the MLE? We'll see. Maybe if we dump off a few more rotation players.

And Monte Ellis. A guy his age, who averaged almost 17ppg as a 2nd year out of high school player. We're gonna get him with what? The MLE? Good luck with that one.

Joe's kidding, right? He can't be serious. Fino may not be a very good player at this point and from what he's shown, but two 2nd round picks in 2009 and 2011???
I mean, that's trading away a NBA- proven player for NOTHING.
This sucks, man. If Joe isn't working out something big, I slowly start disliking him.

Joe is now on the clock. This trade closes the books on a lousy 4 years of first round drafting. 5 first round picks from 2000-2003 and now we have 1 rotation player.

That said, Joe seems to have learned and improved his drafting skills. Maxiell was selected from an available pool of future busts with much bigger names. And if Amir turns out as expected and Acker comes back, 2005 will look really good with three rotation players. Last years pick up of Samb looks interesting.

Joe knows that restocking his team must be done through the draft and this is a very important draft year for his franchise.

Who knows, Joe has been something of a second round master and those 2 picks could turn out to be something.

Man, if just 2 of those picks from the early 2000's had worked out better, this decade would have been a tremendous SA/Det rivalry alot like Bos/LA in the 80's.

not a game changer?? how do you change the game if your role is to stand in the corner and if the shot clock goes down to 4 or 5 we'll pass it to you and you jack up a 3. as stated above delfino's shot isn't broke it just wasn't as pure as it needed to be to have that role in the offense. i disagree about fino not being a game changer. he's come in the game and changed plenty of them with his defense and a timely 3 pointer. it's just flips favorite move that if the bench is doing well and it's getting late in the game he feels he must put the starters back in. delfino has changed the game defensively too. i think this could be a combination of fino wanting out and flip wanting a dead eye 3 point shooter to play the stand in the corner guy role.

His "Broke shot" is vastly overstated. Streaky, yes. Broke? Hardly. His FG% on jumpers was a whopping 1% below Sheed, Tay, and Rip this year. Most of his shots are 3's (Flip's wonderful offense), he's not going to have a great FG% by nature. That jumper BTW, 34.5% his rookie year, to 40.8% his 2nd year, to 44.5% this year. So much for that poor work ethic.

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Where are you getting those numbers on his FG% on jumpers? I haven't seen those anywhere. I'm curious where they might be available.

I'm fine with trading him, but for the love of god, get something worthwhile in return. Dangle Delfino, #27, #15, and whatever else to move up into the top 10. But future 2nd rounders? That's pathetic. Now we have yet another gaping hole to fill, and only middle to late draft picks to fill it with. What? You think Bill D is going to dip well into the tax limit to sign a free agent with the MLE? We'll see. Maybe if we dump off a few more rotation players.

And Monte Ellis. A guy his age, who averaged almost 17ppg as a 2nd year out of high school player. We're gonna get him with what? The MLE? Good luck with that one.

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And that's the point. We basically waived him. If we need his spot for other FAs, why not wait until we at least get them? You can't trust some guys "word" he's coming. Look at Boozer. Someone explain how waiving your only backup SF makes the team better? And don't tell me JMax is a backup 3. He's too slow for that.

What about moving Delfino to clear more minutes for Amir, 16 Mile? I'm not sure that "backup 3" is the proper exclusive role for Amir, but if we draft another guy who can play either at the 2 or 3, that might bring in some good new lineup possibilities. Everyone (including Joe) wants Amir to get into the rotation, so doesn't this trade make that easier to do?

He will have a very good year for the Raps as long as Sam Mitchell uses him properly. I used to think maybe minutes was a key thing for him, but the biggest issue is his role on the team. If he gets the ball in his hands to create more often (that happend once every 2-3 games here), he will succeed even if he isn't playing 30mpg.

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Here is my impression. They got him very cheap. His contract expires and if they make a mid-season move, he could be used as a small expiring throw in. Strictly as a non-playing asset he has quite a bit of value. But Mitchell is one of those tough coaches. He and Delfino will get along fine as long as Carlos shows more improvement and plays with a high motor. If Carlos struggles, Mitchell has a very large and uncomfortable dog house.

A big plus for Carlos is that he speaks Spanish and Italian. Maurizio Gerhardini is in the front office and he's an Italian basketball legend, Jose Calderon is Spanish and Andreas Bargnani is Italian. Language shouldn't be any kind of barrier, which if you have heard Delfino speak in English on radio interviews, may have held him back here.

Not to pimp T.O. but it's a really multi-cultural city. Off the court, Delfino should enjoy living there.

I'm ok with taking a SG. Delfino was a FA after this year anyway. He might not have been back the next season and we would have had to draft a SG in what might be a weaker draft or at a lower position than in this one.

I just answered a PM with this and wanted to mention, that perhaps Carlos asked for a trade.

Before people beat up on Joe, or accuse him of having something against International/Caucasian players, bear in mind that Carlos has asked out numerous times in the past.

And this is probably a darn good move for Carlos' career.

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True, Carlos may have asked for a trade, but you don't give the guy away for nothing. I expected Delfino to be moved, however I thought he would be cap filler in a bigger deal that would have bought us some serious help.

This smells really bad and looks more like a salary dump than anything else. I don't see any major deals going down folks. We have very little that another team would want unless you give up a starter or two.

His "Broke shot" is vastly overstated..... His FG% on jumpers was a whopping 1% below Sheed, Tay, and Rip this year. That jumper BTW, 34.5% his rookie year, to 40.8% his 2nd year, to 44.5% this year...... And what about the defensive jump between his first and 2nd year? Next year, he came in as a very solid defensive player.

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Delfino's shot has been broke since he got here. His shot was no more reliable (and perhaps less so) than Hunters. I would argue his shooting percentage is vastly overstated. Here again is another example of relying on stats to support a wish. With this line of thinking, we could just field any 5 guys who shot 45% last year. Then according to your spreadsheet, we would win it all every year.

As for his defense....get real. His defense took a noticable jump in improvement about halfway through last season. He was nowhere near that level of performace the first half of last season.

As for the "he wanted to take the summer off again" claim.. He already agreed to play for Argentina (Manu and Nocioni won't be there this year, so he will log major minutes). And which summer was it that he took off before, BTW? Last year he played for Argentina. The year before he played in the Summer League and for Argentina. You're grasping at straws here..

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Straws? I think not. By all accounts, Delfino came to camp WAY out of shape every year he was here. How do you "play for Argentina" and end up out of shape by the time REAL camp start? It was quite obvious to some of us that he did not work on his game each summer. But for sake of argument, if he did work on his game and could perform no better than he did; perhaps he's reached his ceiling.

What about moving Delfino to clear more minutes for Amir, 16 Mile? I'm not sure that "backup 3" is the proper exclusive role for Amir, but if we draft another guy who can play either at the 2 or 3, that might bring in some good new lineup possibilities. Everyone (including Joe) wants Amir to get into the rotation, so doesn't this trade make that easier to do?

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From what I've been reading, Joe believes whomever he drafts will be better than Delfino, so Delfino was essentially let go to make a roster spot for the draft picks. Deal was probably sealed when Flip Jr. decided to stay, and Delfino's agent showed up in town after the playoffs.

So our bench next year will be Flip, Jmax, Amir, Nazr, and the 15th pick. The later pick goes to the NBDL.

I think we will be excited with this move but it does leave a gaping hole on the team. We had a decent 1/2/3 backup that could have been given an expanded role. Without a free agent move, our draft looks like:

a PG combo (a la Stuckey) that can score but isn't that Flip Murray? so our backup at the 2/3 is Dupree?

or

a scoring wing (Nick Young) but that makes us depend on Flip Murray who is not even that decent and won't be here very long. can we realistically expect any guy to come in and contribute? We haven't played a rookie since I can remember.

From what I've been reading, Joe believes whomever he drafts will be better than Delfino, so Delfino was essentially let go to make a roster spot for the draft picks. Deal was probably sealed when Flip Jr. decided to stay, and Delfino's agent showed up in town after the playoffs.

So our bench next year will be Flip, Jmax, Amir, Nazr, and the 15th pick. The later pick goes to the NBDL.

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But you don't think Amir fits directly into the Delfino discussion? I really think Delfino was moved in part to clear up more minutes for Amir. Not totally--as in, I don't think Joe simply expects 100% of Delfino's minutes to go to Amir--but I do think that's what Joe expects to happen with at least some of those minutes.

FIRE SALEPhase One
My only problem with Fino was his ocassional BBeen act around the rim.
New rule: You can only miss one layup all year.-Bar fouls.
Penalty: 3 DNPs or 3 one minute stints of G/T. So when eveyone sees you doing the G/T everyone goes,"WTF"!